Songs and Isolation
by Min Daae
Summary: Darn those plot bunnies. Logainfic. Musing on the news coming through the tower, his hopes of glory, and his despair of life. R&R, if you want to. You do. Trust me. Nother ONESHOT. Rating to be safe. Featuring major Logainwangst.


_A/N: AH! THE PLOT BUNNIES!_

'_Nough said._

I sit here in these gardens, humming to myself – a gloomy tune I heard once, so long ago. The sun shines overhead, but I do not feel its heat; the birds sing in the flowering trees, but I do not hear their song. All I feel is the shine of the True Source, a beckoning will' o' the wisp so close and forever out of reach. All I hear is its song, whispering enticingly in my ears like a reminder on the edge of memory.

Gentled. Me! I was destined for glory, so sure that I could raise a banner and survive to be great. Not just another False Dragon, captured and gentled by the White Tower. But that was what I was, it seemed. All I ever would be. To live out my days a reminder to other fools such as I. I would rather die, but the Aes Sedai gave me no choice. Gentled. It all came back to that, now. My thoughts ran in circles, always back to that terrible word. It sounded so…painless. Something that needed to be done, they said. Like cutting a rabid dog's throat to prevent a slow death. But one death, to me, is no better than another. You are still dead, in the end.

The Accepted are afraid of me. They flinch when they see me, cowering back, turning away. They could hold me still, wrap me up and shove me in a bathtub as if I was no higher than their knee, even with the little they know. I am no longer a man who can channel, a _thing_ to be feared and hated. I am merely a man who has lost all faith in my life. Perhaps they see death in my gaze when they flinch away from me, but it is not for them. For myself. For surely simply to die would be better than to live days without end without that which made my life so precious?

The Accepted who cares for me is the only one who does not look at me as if I am a viper ready to strike. Perhaps she understands the brutality of what they have done to me. Gentled, for me, stilled, for them, and their word describes the harshness far better than how they describe mine. The stark reality of my life does not fit that tender gentled. There is pity in her eyes as she watches me, a sympathetic note in the soothing touch of her hands when she finds me crying. And yet, I don't even know her name.

I see the Daughter-Heir, sometimes. For all her novice humility, she does not lose that proud dignity that I remember in her mother, the Queen. In the days when I faced her proud, full of glory, sure of my success. So certain that I could never be pulled down, that somehow I would break free. How wrong I was. She stares at me when she sees me, not in fear as all the others, but a studying, sad look, as if she is remembering someone. It is the same expression I see on Egwene's face, and Nynaeve's – the ones the Aes Sedai always talk about.

They talk freely in front of me, as if I can't hear, of perhaps don't matter. Maybe they know that I will say nothing. After all, who would speak to me, a False Dragon; or if they did, who would believe? A man who could channel might say anything. Who knew what his motives might be? A man who could channel – a wild, dangerous beast to be feared, watched, chained – never trusted. But trusted or not, chained or not, what I hear in passing conversation occupies my mind, keeps it from lingering on the fearful finality of what was done to me. I hear of war in Arad Doman, in Tarabon, of men swearing for the Dragon on Almoth Plain. There were always fools fighting there, and more would swear for a man making that claim. I muttered a prayer for the man, whoever he was, that he would not fall into the cruel hands of the Reds, whether or not he could channel. All men were the same to them once they claimed the name Dragon. Many men had died before reaching the Tower in the hands of those Light forsaken women.

But there was other news, too, more disturbing – spoken in low whispers, with nervous flutters of hands on skirts. The Stone had fallen. The Aiel had crossed the Dragonwall for the first time since the Aiel War, and it was they that held the Stone. _Callandor _had been drawn. The Dragon was Reborn. And, as time passed, a name, whispered over and over in many voices. _Rand al'Thor. Rand al'Thor has drawn _Callandor. _Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn._

Rand al'Thor. It was not a name to shake the world or strike fear into the hearts of many. More suited to a shepherd boy that the Dragon Reborn. But he had drawn _Callandor, _the Sword that Could Not be Touched, and that was proof enough for me that he was destined for the glory that might have been mine. I could not begrudge him, though. Rather, I only hoped that I might live to see him bring the White Tower to its knees. Logain Ablar. A name more suited to a Dragon than Rand al'Thor. A name to strike fear into the hearts of people across Ghealdan, A name to be whispered fearfully in the night. The name of a Dragon. Not the name of a man defeated, a man despairing of life, wishing solely for death.


End file.
